Normally I'm strongly opposed to burning people at the stake, but Karl Rove has it coming, according to Karl Rove: If I Politicized White House The Way Obama Has, I'd Be Burned At The Stake.
Here's what can be laid at Karl Rove's feet to fuel the fire:
*Coal mining deaths:
What makes Karl Rove's politics uber alles strategy chilling is connecting the dots between it and the Utah mining disaster.
Rove's unprecedented use of federal assets for political gain, laid out in yesterday's Washington Post, meant that every tool at his disposal was employed to help foster his goal of a permanent Republican majority. "It was all politics, all the time," Rep. Henry Waxman told WaPo.
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But Rove's plan involved much more than having Cabinet officials make election year visits bearing federal goodies to the districts of embattled Republicans; it also meant using the government's regulatory mechanisms to reward major GOP contributors. Major contributors such as Big Coal.
Coal mining interests have donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush-era began with the 2000 election cycle, with 88% of that money -- $10.6 million -- going to Republicans.
And what did that largess buy the coal mining industry? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners.
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Of course, industry-friendly regulators like Stickler have been the rule under Bush, not the exception. Indeed, Bush's first mine safety czar was Dave Lauriski, a former mining executive who had earned a reputation for aggressively defending the interests of mine owners. For chapter and verse on Lauriski, read this terrific article by Ken Ward, Jr. in the Washington Monthly, but here is the nub of the matter: Lauriski took office promising mine owners that he would "collaborate more with stakeholders on regulatory initiatives" and become "less confrontational" with mine operators.
Exactly what did he mean by "less confrontational"? According to Ward, during his tenure, Lauriski "filled [MSHA's] top jobs with former industry colleagues, dropped more than a dozen safety proposals initiated during the Clinton administration, and cut almost 200 of the agency's 1,200 coal mine inspectors. Mine-safety experts have linked many of these actions to the causes of deadly mine safety accidents since 2001." Among the mine-safety regulations Lauriski dropped was one that would have deepened investigations of mining accidents.
* Politicization of the
Justice Department:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) today released over 700 pages of on-the-record interview transcripts of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers on the U.S. attorney firings and the Bush administration's politicization of the Department of Justice. Conyers also released over 5,400 pages of Bush White House and Republican National Committee e-mails on these subjects.
The released materials reveal that White House officials were deeply involved in the U.S. attorney firings and the administration made a concerted effort to hide that fact from the American people. "After all the delay and despite all the obfuscation, lies, and spin," Conyers said, "this basic truth can no longer be denied: Karl Rove and his cohorts at the Bush White House were the driving force behind several of these firings, which were done for improper reasons. Under the Bush regime, honest and well-performing U.S. attorneys were fired for petty patronage, political horsetrading and, in the most egregious case of political abuse of the U.S. attorney corps - that of U.S. Attorney Iglesias - because he refused to use his office to help Republicans win elections. When Mr. Iglesias said his firing was a 'political fragging,' he was right."
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Outing covert agents:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House political adviser Karl Rove was one of Robert Novak's sources for the 2003 disclosure of a CIA operative's identity, the syndicated columnist wrote Tuesday.
Rove thinks the Obama administration is worse than he was? If he's ever charged with a crime as he should have been, he's got a strong case for an insanity defense.
We could only wish Karl Rove had politicized the Bush White House as little the way Obama has, but it was all politics, all the time.
When Karl Rove was in action, no stakes were required for the American people to get burned by him.